Can someone explain why Crofty/BBC keep calling the HRT the "Spanish National Team" for 2012, he even said "HRT, or shall I call them Spanish National Team for 2012" or something like that? Are they changing their name? This is news to me, he said it quite alot during Practice IIRC. Or is Crofty/BBC just being massive idiots again?

Can someone explain why Crofty/BBC keep calling the HRT the "Spanish National Team" for 2012, he even said "HRT, or shall I call them Spanish National Team for 2012" or something like that? Are they changing their name? This is news to me, he said it quite alot during Practice IIRC. Or is Crofty/BBC just being massive idiots again?

No change, I guess now that they are moving back to Spain and have just signed a Spanish driver are more Spanish than ever.

There's an interesting insight into the recent driver appointment. Luizzi has a multiyear deal, so he'd have to be paid off to leave. Thatks why De La Rosa's hiring is so bizarre, he's not bringing funding unless the Spanish owners have already lined up comitted sponsors for next year.

SR: We are meeting our targets and on the right path but we still have a lot of work to do. The 2012 car is going well and so is work on a new headquarters. We hope to complete our driver line-up once the season is over. We are also working hard on next year's sponsors and partners. We will make our first announcements soon and we also hope that the recent events will help to generate confidence and attract people towards us. We are aware that the current economical situation in Spain and the rest of the world isn't ideal but Formula 1 is still an unmatchable showcase worldwide and we can offer an interesting and different panorama than other teams.

so, they're finding money as.... everybody . He also states that "we will make our first annoucements soon", some good deal already into the pocket

I'll have to suspend my disbelief. Spain's just had a change of government and the new government intends to replace austerity with even more austerity. I can't believe any sane spaniard's going to allow his taxes to fund a formula 1 program. If so, to qoute the Kaiser Chiefs " I predict a riot"!

I'll have to suspend my disbelief. Spain's just had a change of government and the new government intends to replace austerity with even more austerity. I can't believe any sane spaniard's going to allow his taxes to fund a formula 1 program. If so, to qoute the Kaiser Chiefs " I predict a riot"!

Tonio seems pretty certain he's on a multiyear deal, so perhaps we could see PDLR and Tonio together in race seats next year, with some younger guys like Clos etc. having Friday drives? What happens with Karthikeyan, who was actually pretty good in the car this year?

Tonio seems pretty certain he's on a multiyear deal, so perhaps we could see PDLR and Tonio together in race seats next year, with some younger guys like Clos etc. having Friday drives? What happens with Karthikeyan, who was actually pretty good in the car this year?

Although I think Liuzzi has done well this year, I seem to remember him saying he had a multi year deal before leaving STR and Force India.

Clos, Van Der Garde or someone completely out of the blue will get he 2nd seat.

I just can't follow the Logic of Thesan Capital. Do the people advising them have any experience in F1 management? HRT's performance is car limited, so they need a better car.
The imponderables remain an inexperienced design team and a small budget.
De La Rosa's appointment flummoxed me. Any feedback he delivers will only be as good as the car he's given and his past performances have shown that he drives well within the car's capacity. Luizzi may indeed lose his seat but you'd have to believe that after his run in with V J Mallya, Peter Collins would have some pretty punitive clauses in any agreement for breach of contract.

The team has NO infra at all, forget chassis design... Willis was doing something, but what was that? A little bit?
Kind of amazing to see them beating a properly racing spirited John's team.
How is this possible?

Looking forward.

They should get a Spanish Sponsor, perhaps IMF? Yes, International MOnetary Fonds...

Having had a full 19 races to judge, finishing 11th was a miracle. The Virgin car was an absolute monster, knocked up in Nick Wirth's Frankenstein laboratory. Yet it was still intrinsically faster than the F111.
Lemec, you clearly have inside knowledge. If luizzi is indeed paying for his seat then we can stick a fork in him now, cos his F1 career's done.
As an aside, could you explain the logic behind De La Rosa's appointment. He's slow, AFAIK Gary Paffet does all the simulator testing at Woking and he's not paying for his seat.

It's just matter to seen his performance without preconceptions. He, recently matched in qualy the, overrated, Kobayasi as well as he matched Kimi's points (keeping aside the engine freeze issue) in 2006, and that being dropped on the seat after a long period out of the competition what, I would say, is a real handicap in any situation more when you face a driver of Kimi's level.

2. PDLR is a real asset for the car development.

No doubt about. Whismart's farewell speech was clear and honest but, in addition, the way he went out to joint Sauber, and his come back to his former duties, Martin allowing him to race in canada ... Those are facts that prove how he's considered in Woking.

3. PDLR is a Huge asset for the Team image.

Maybe this is hard to belive for you guys but Pedro is very charismatic and has a solid image of very respectable professional and head of family which are paramount values for the team deciders.

Pedro is on team's agenda from the first day. He is marked as key personel in the first Adrian's Business Plan. The timing was not correct for him, as the Sauber season proved, at such early stage but now it is. The team is more mature and he's three year older.

My "HRT connection" is indirect but it proved being quite reliable ... so far.

I don't recall De La Rosa's career being a great success. IIRC Adrian Campos' business plan was a non starter. I have serious doubts about the people advising Thesan Capital. Kolles at least knows how to keep a team afloat. Its not going to take too many misjudgements for a small team to go to the wall.

Well, It depends on your definition of "great success". He's still there, that's a sort of sucess, and as I said, when he had the opportunity he was able to match Kimi's performance. Of course you're free to think that getting as much points as Kimi got is not a great sucess but, for sure, it was not a flop.

Campos' Three years Bussines Plan, started and was developped by Carabante who were there from the first day and on the basis of such a business plan. Actually, the busines plan that Thessan is developing is, so far, quite similar.

Kolles is one of the people advising Thesan the other one (on the sport branch) is Luis Perez-Sala. Former F1 driver, business and sportive advisor since his retirement of the competition, closely related to Banco Popular (4th spanish bank) Luis' complete name is Luis Perez-Sala Valls-Taberner ;)

The point I'm making is that Campos' business plan did not work. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Carabante have to make up the shortfall in funding. Even then it was not enough to move the team forward.
I remember Perez Sala from his Minardi days, but I don't remember him having any experience in team management. His connection with Banco Popular is interesting though. The suspiscion is that the Spanish Banks are under capitalised, are you suggesting that they could fund the team? Could be a hard sell to the board of shareholders particularly with the eoro crisis.

Carabante was in from the first day, even before the project being granted with the entry. The point is that when the budget-cut rule was dismissed this people faced a non-return point. Either funding the Team by themselves or stopping the project. In Carabate's words, "losing one million or to invest forty". He chose funding the team by a capital increase where he was the sole investor. At that moment the shares of the other shareholders become extremely minority. Later he bought the 100%. But even once Campos chose retiring, the roadmap for this project was the one he design, with the logical adaptations. If you meant that they failed to get the expected external funding and that this mean that the bussines plan didn't work, ok, but I don't think that just because the source of the money changed the business plan failed.

This is a three year plan and the way HRT is evolving is matching it except for one point, the Dallara joint venture. From the first day the idea is to first out-sourcing the car building and renting the race facilities with the goal that after three years the Team would be in a position to built and make race a chassis conceived in Spain by a team with an important contribution of Spanish engineers.

This point, that is still there for Thesan, is paramount to understand what is going on. The aim of Campos/Hispania/HRT is not as simple as run a race car. Saul Ruiz, HRT CEO, perfectly know that the decision of base the team in Spain is not the easiest way. Mercedes is still based in Brackley or RBR in Milton Keynes ... HRT has already bought some facilities in Valencia. The cars are there even when HRT's representatives are still dealing with the local authorities to obtain the better agreement to take over the former Oracle BMW Copa America's facilities. Plan B would be moving to Madrid.

Basing the team in spain will mean that some (many) of the britons will leave. The first of them was Geoff Willis. They know that. All this is in the original business plan.

2. Luis Perez-Sala Valls-Taberner

His role is not to run the Team. This is the duty of (in this order) Saul Ruiz and Collin Kolles. I don't think it is envisaged that Luis will replace Kolles. Luis will just act as a top level advisor.

3. Spanish banks

This is completely off-topic but the cruel reality is that spanish banks are NOT under capitalised. Said that, I don't see any of them directly funding the Team but Banco Popular was already backing all the Carabante's operations and the presence of Luis Perez-Sala in the current HRT board makes me think that they are still some how involved.

This is off topic. I take it then than Spain's banks are not exposed to the greek souverign debt and have not been burnt by the collapse in the building market as happened in Ireland.
I personally would not pay too much attention to the ECB stress tests. If the euro fails all banks are under capitalised.

As everyone can see spain exposure to greek and irish debt is 0 and exposure to Italy and portugal is little. Actually, for spain, the problem (if it is one) is the UK souverign debt

Regarding the "collapse" of the building maket. The situation in Spain has nothing to do with what happened in Ireland. I have no british sources to show you in this sense and I don't think is worth to continue here with the off-topic, If you're interested just send me a message.

Tonio is in troubles in any case, if he's paying or not by the seat is not relevant. Not being a pay driver does not guarantee that your contract is free of dozen of clauses that will allow the team ejecting you for free.

There are a lot of F1 drivers with plenty of dollar and looking for a seat.

I don't know. It seems there are a lot of drivers with barrow loads of euros on the market and maybe 1 or 2 seats left. In addition there's added pressure on the new teams to perform as next year will be the last year there will be money from FOM for eleventh and Twelth spot. After that it reverts back to monies for up to tenth.

Kimi's comeback together with the fact that Marussia has already close his line-up will be all benefit for HRT.

There are a lot of people on the market. Trulli, Rubens, Nick?, Petrov, Maldonado, Senna, Narain ... but also Hulkenberg, Gutierrez, "pechito" Lopez ... one of this two has already call to HRT but I don't know Who. I would say Lopez.

Kimi's comeback together with the fact that Marussia has already close his line-up will be all benefit for HRT.

There are a lot of people on the market. Trulli, Rubens, Nick?, Petrov, Maldonado, Senna, Narain ... but also Hulkenberg, Gutierrez, "pechito" Lopez ... one of this two has already call to HRT but I don't know Who. I would say Lopez.

Kimi's comeback together with the fact that Marussia has already close his line-up will be all benefit for HRT.

There are a lot of people on the market. Trulli, Rubens, Nick?, Petrov, Maldonado, Senna, Narain ... but also Hulkenberg, Gutierrez, "pechito" Lopez ... one of this two has already call to HRT but I don't know Who. I would say Lopez.

We can stick a fork in the first 3 on that list. They don't bring money. Senna and Kolles is oil and water. Maldonado is integral to Williams business plan. Don't know about the rest.

Kimi's comeback together with the fact that Marussia has already close his line-up will be all benefit for HRT.

There are a lot of people on the market. Trulli, Rubens, Nick?, Petrov, Maldonado, Senna, Narain ... but also Hulkenberg, Gutierrez, "pechito" Lopez ... one of this two has already call to HRT but I don't know Who. I would say Lopez.

My thoughts exactly. Marussia must be kicking themselves, If they had waited two more weeks in making a decision they would have been able to chose a Russian driver for a Russian team.

I like Liuzzi and think he has done a sterling job this year but I think HRT should wait and see how the rest of the grid formulates and take their pick.

We can stick a fork in the first 3 on that list. They don't bring money. Senna and Kolles is oil and water. Maldonado is integral to Williams business plan. Don't know about the rest.

Do we know how much cash Maldonado brings into Williams? The up turn in the Brazilian economy means Senna has more backing now than he has in the past. Maybe he is just a really positive guy but his body language and attitude when he was on the BBC at the weekend did not hint of a guy who was not going to be in F1 next year. Compare his mood to that of Sutil.

I think thats the most likely outcome. Or if not Clos some other driver with a donkey load of funding. What I think is likely to happen is movement at mid season as which ever driver is not performing gets the boot. This would be typical Kolles, keeping the pressure on both drivers so there's no dead weight ballast.

I think thats the most likely outcome. Or if not Clos some other driver with a donkey load of funding. What I think is likely to happen is movement at mid season as which ever driver is not performing gets the boot. This would be typical Kolles, keeping the pressure on both drivers so there's no dead weight ballast.

Quite right Petrol, about time Kolles changed though....

Think the new owners hat to change the thinking though and I hope they bring Clos in for the whole season.

I think thats the most likely outcome. Or if not Clos some other driver with a donkey load of funding. What I think is likely to happen is movement at mid season as which ever driver is not performing gets the boot. This would be typical Kolles, keeping the pressure on both drivers so there's no dead weight ballast.